Kaiser grad tackles politics, reality TV

By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Education Writer

"American Candidate," featuring Malia Lazu, premiered a week ago on Showtime. The 10-episode reality series from documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler has 10 contestants from all walks of life face off against each other to test their presidential mettle. Showtime photos

"American Candidate" competitor Malia Lazu went to Pauoa Elementary School, Kawananakoa Middle School and Kaiser High School. She is of African-American, Puerto Rican and Italian ancestry. 'American Candidate' 6 tonight Showtime

She wants to rally the disenfranchised, end the war in Iraq and put the diva in democracy. She wishes everyone would date someone from a different race at least once. She would legalize drugs and control guns. She favors universal healthcare, gay marriage and abortion rights.

With a tongue ring and a penchant for drama — she once contributed to a book called "How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office" — Lazu, who graduated from Kaiser High School, is not your typical politician.

But that's the premise of "American Candidate," a new Showtime reality series that hopes to get more people talking about politics by giving mock presidential contenders a test drive.

The candidate with the highest profile, Chrissy Gephardt, the lesbian daughter of U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat who dropped a real-life campaign for president this year, was voted off the show Aug. 1. A candidate is bounced on every episode until the finalists face off in a debate that will bring the winner $200,000 and a media appearance to address the nation.

Talk-show veteran Montel Williams hosts the show, which is kind of like "American Idol" for wonks. The producers want the series to be a launching pad for unknown leaders, who first have to master the same tasks as real candidates, like staging campaign rallies, doing opposition research and prepping for debates.

The candidates get advice from political professionals like Democratic strategist Joe Trippi and Republican navigator Ed Rollins. They experience the same self-doubt and stresses as in a legitimate campaign, as Lazu learned when she organized her campaign announcement in a Boston bar and grill. Near tears, she worried whether anyone would show up.

This week, the candidates are shown in New Hampshire, a key primary state, where they talk with voters and give speeches on the war on terrorism.

"It makes you kind of not be human," Lazu, 27, said of life in the fishbowl. "I can see why politicians, when they get up to be president, lose a chunk of their personality."

Personality is one of Lazu's strengths.

Brash and assertive, she recalls waving campaign signs as a youngster for former state lawmaker Rod Tam, now a Honolulu councilman, and telling her aunties she would grow up to run for president one day. She went to Pauoa Elementary School and Kawananakoa Middle School before Kaiser, and described her home life on the show's Web site as "hella poor ... because of my mom, my childhood was good. My dad had issues."

Lazu, who is of African-American, Puerto Rican and Italian ancestry, went to Emerson College in Boston and immersed herself in political activism. She registered new voters in Boston's tough Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan neighborhoods and raised political awareness in the hip-hop community.

She now lives in Washington, D.C., and is field coordinator for the Young Voter Alliance, a group trying to increase voter turnout among young progressives in five battleground states.

"She's always been very outspoken," said her mother, Ellen Lubrano, a volunteer coordinator for an animal hospital in Oregon who wants to move back to Hawai'i soon. "She has an open mind. I think growing up in Hawai'i, with all the diversity, has helped."

Lazu said she still comes back to the Islands to visit friends and hopes people here will support her. "I need you guys. I miss you guys," she said. "I grew up with so much love and aloha and it's still in me."

As Jasmine Trias and Camile Velasco discovered this year on Fox's "American Idol," Hawai'i can take reality television to the extreme. But viewers of "American Candidate" won't get to vote for their favorites until the final few episodes, and Hawai'i, with its low voter turnout, may not embrace a cable reality series about politics with the same passion as "Idol."

The show's creator, R.J. Cutler, is known for insightful documentaries about politics. "The War Room" looked inside Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and helped make media stars of political strategists James Carville and George Steph-anopoulos. "A Perfect Candidate" followed the failed 1994 U.S. Senate campaign of Iran-contra figure Oliver North in Virginia.

The main tease of "American Candidate" is that the winner may run for president this year as a write-in once the series ends in October — never mind that candidates like Lazu don't meet the minimum age of 35.

The melodramatic reality show formula, which can already seem predictable, may also detract from the winner's credibility as a new political voice.

Viewers will immediately recognize the format, especially at the end of each episode, when candidates go into a voting booth and explain to the camera why they are voting to remove a challenger. Williams then breaks the bad news to the loser. "The votes have been counted," he said last Sunday. "Chrissy Gephardt, you're off the ballot."

Kay Maxwell, president of the League of Women Voters, who serves on the show's advisory board, said the series may attract people who have not responded to traditional voter outreach. "It's an interesting way to try and perhaps reach a different audience," she said.

The show has attracted some interesting candidates, who were cast from thousands of applicants drawn to the plea: "Wanted: Leader of the Free World."

The early front-runner is Park Gillespie, a conservative middle school science and social studies teacher from North Carolina. Keith Boykin, who lives in New York, was a special assistant in the Clinton White House and wrote a book about being black and gay in America. Bruce Friedrich is an activist with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Virginia. Joyce Riley, of Missouri, was a nurse in the Gulf War and hosts a radio show with her husband.

On the first episode, the candidates already started to draw traditional liberal and conservative dividing lines and fell into the "don't hate the player, hate the game" reality show machinations.

Boykin, for instance, was torn by whether he could in good conscience vote another gay person off the show, even if it enhanced his chances by giving the gay community one candidate to rally around. He ended up voting for Gephardt.

Lazu, who already knows, but can't reveal, her own fate, does not believe a reality show trivializes her work. She said the series is an opportunity for her to reach more young people than she could on the streets. She also wants to show that you don't have to wear a suit and look like a cardboard cut-out politician to get your message to a national audience.

"I saw this reality show as a great way to put a regular face, a real person, on the issues," Lazu said.

Besides, she really does want to be president some day, or at least run for political office, and free exposure never hurts. Neither does some professional tips on image and advertising.

"I learned that consultants are actually a lot more helpful than you think," Lazu said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.